


Take Care

by coricomile



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Growing Up, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:40:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24211483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coricomile/pseuds/coricomile
Summary: Take care of Sammy.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 87





	Take Care

The first memory Dean could really pull up was of his father shoving the baby into his arms and telling him to run. If he really tried to remember he felt the flames, even a floor down, singeing his hair and his soft hands and smoke that made him cough. He could smell the char from the first burning body in a long, long line of them. He doesn't really try. 

Take care of Sammy. The first and most important order his father had ever given him. Dean was the older brother. Dean was the one who could be taught and then pass the knowledge down. Dean was the one who could hold tiny, itty bitty little Sammy in his arms and stop the tears and the pain, who could lie nice and smart to hide the demons away from his all consuming job. He wishes it would have paid better. 

He'd been four, nearly five when his life turned into a never ending road trip. He'd been four, nearly five, when he stopped thinking of home as a single place and instead as the location of Dad and Sam, which was usually the car. He gave Sam his bottles in the back of the Impala, their Dad eating up road as fast as Sam ate up formula. He'd sing along to the radio as a lullabye, his arms Sam's new crib, and the memories of tomato and rice soup and _Hey, Jude_ fading and fading and fading away with each state line. He'd been four, nearly five, when he began saying Sir more than Dad. He was a big boy. He had a job. 

Take care of Sammy. Dean started babysitting on his own at nine, just a little after his birthday. He knew how to load a gun, always so heavy in his hands, and the right way to salt the windows to make sure the bad things couldn't get in. He knew a lot. He also got bored, and sad sometimes for no reason. There was no place, no time, to be sad but he couldn't stop it. He knew a lot, but Sam was smart. Dean couldn't be sad, because it made Dad's face twist and made Sam, still so small, give him those smart, quiet looks of his. Sam didn't need to know. Not yet. 

Not when he still smiled so wide when Dean taught him how to grapple, laughing like they were playing a game instead of learning a lesson. Not when he laughed in the middle of the night, way past his bedtime, messily shoveling handfuls of rock salt into cartridges because Dean said it was a competition and not that their Dad was going to need those shells now, now, _right now_ to save someone. Not when he looked at Dean with those big eyes of his, still so innocent and good, and smiled big and wide and happy. 

Dean got bored and got sad and he tried to push it down, but sometimes he couldn't help it. And sometimes he failed. Sometimes he let the sad in him overtake his job. And that night in Wisconsin, when he should have been watching Sam with a careful eye, he'd ignored it for himself. He left and Sam had almost _died_ , and it had been all his fault. He could have lost Sam, the one thing in the world that meant more than anything, because he'd been stupid and selfish. 

He promised himself that night, wrapped around Sammy's feverish little body, that he'd never fail again. Family was the most important thing in the world, no matter how he felt inside. 

Sam was eight when he found out. When Dean couldn't outsmart him or lie to him anymore. Sam had always been too smart. Dean didn't know where he got it- maybe from Mom, because it sure as hell wasn't from him or Dad. Dad knew stuff. Dean knew stuff. But Sam _saw_ stuff. 

"Tell me the truth," Sam said, little mouth quivering even as he tested the patented Winchester staredown.

"Monsters are real," Dean said despite himself. He could see the break happening, a fault cracking and spreading behind Sam's eyes, but he couldn't take it back. "Dad hunts them. Keeps us safe. Like a superhero."

But superheroes left damage in their wake. Dean liked to read comics, could spend hours in the back of the Impala staring at the dots of color and slowed down action. But whenever Captain America showed up, they didn't talk about the people inside the building being burned or exploded or crushed. Cap caught the bad guy and the rest was detail. 

Dad was the best superhero because all he cared about was the people burning in the wake's fire. He pulled so many people away from claws and dark and sometimes real fire, an immovable force in the dark. There were no words to give Sam. Dad was everything Dean wanted to be, needed to be, and part of it was the anonymity. If he could have Sam look up at him that way, with eyes wide and bright and curious, he'd already won. 

Take care of Sammy. When Sam was thirteen, already too angry and too sweet all at once, Dean tried to be good to his brother. They spent more time together than they didn't those days, by choice or not. Dad had found a lead he wouldn't tell Dean about at all, and it stung. He had been a hunter in his own rights for a few years. He could have helped. 

Instead, he let Sam cook dinner and show him a few places around town and kept the kid out of trouble. Sam always got restless when school was out, nothing for him to really do but bounce of the walls and read through the few lore books Dad let him have access to. It crushed him, and Dean tried to help. 

In July, he lit fireworks and damn near burned down an entire forest for the sweet way that Sam smiled at him, for the way that Sam held onto him for too long in a hug filled with pure, excited joy. He held his little brother to his chest, the pop of fireworks still going off not far enough away, and soaked in the praise of someone who loved him unapologetically. 

"Kiss me," Sam said, his head titled back and his eyes as bright as the light above them. Dean felt the words like a punch. 

Sam scared him sometimes. Dean had always been stubborn, but Sam knew how to wheedle and sidestep and squirm into getting his way. He knew how to look at the soft spots and press just right, never threatening or overpowering the way Dean was, the way Dad was, just subtly manipulative in the way they'd taught him. And not much made him snap but when he snapped, Sam turned into something angry and foreign and dark. He used those brains of his to hit all the right places and hit dirty and let the rage inside of him build until it burst. 

"Sammy-"

"Please, Dean," Sam said, his eyes so wide, voice shaking. "Please. I want you to."

"Sam." Dean brushed away the hair from Sam's face, Sam's arms still locked tight around him, squeezing too hard. Sam's hair fell right back over his forehead, not quite long enough to tuck behind his ears. Dean had cut it just a few weeks before, Sam straddling the closed lid of a motel toilet and Dean wielding a pair of scissors that needed to be broken apart and set to a whetstone. He cupped his hand against Sam's cheek, still soft with baby fat, put his thumb against the little mole near his mouth to cover it. "Sam, you know I can't." One of the fireworks cracked in the distance. It was pink and magenta and turned Sam's skin a ghastly shade of red in the dark. 

"Dean, _please_." Sam closed his eyes and turned his face into Dean's palm. He kept them closed as he spoke, but Dean knew the exact color of them by heart. "I want you to show me."

"You did not just quote Foreigner-" 

" _Dean_."

Dean had never been able to tell Sam no. Not when it was something that really mattered, even if he knew it was a bad idea. 

"Keep your eyes closed," he whispered. 

For once, Sam listened, his cheek still pressed into Dean's palm. He was turning into a good looking kid, more cute than hot, a face that begged to be brought home to mom and dad. It wasn't right. Sam was younger than Dean had ever been. Dean had already lost his virginity by then, had already killed something with a lucky shot by then, had already bled for other people. And Sam- he got to read the books sometimes and patch them up, but he'd never killed. He'd never been kissed, like something out of _Sixteen Candles_.

It should have been some nice girl with braces. It could have even been some nice boy with just as much brain but not enough smarts. Instead, it would be him, stealing one more thing away from Sam. He never wanted to take things, always tried to give, but Sam just shed little parts of himself away every time he so much as breathed. If Dean could hold those tender bits together, he would. He'd try. 

The fireworks were outside of them but Dean could feel their sparks inside his chest and inside his stomach as he slowly lowered his head. He could feel the catch of Sam's breath, saw that little curl at the corner of his mouth that always came when he got his way, and then nothing else was there at all. Sam's lips were soft, but he pushed up onto his toes, his hands tight on Dean's arms. 

"Slow down," Dean said gently. He wrapped his hand up with Sam's hair, soft and just a little sweat damp from the heat. He tugged once, twice, before Sam fell back on his heels. "You want me to show you? Let me show you."

Dean brushed his lips over Sam's, a ghost of a touch, before keeping his promise. 

Take care of Sammy. He still drove Sam to school, even after he dropped out himself. Dean was never going to be the smart one. Not like that. But he didn't have to be because Sam had that part covered. He still made sure there was enough money in the house when the credit cards Dad left got cut off, throwing his body under cars into bars and doing whatever scraps he could to make sure Sam ate and had clothes that fit him and to keep him in soccer when there was a team around. He still passed down Dad's lessons second hand, sitting at the coffee table or on a hotel bed, a homeschool for the paranormal. 

But sometimes Sam would crawl into bed with him and lay his head on Dean's chest, still and quiet, until the restlessness got to him. Sam was shooting up fast and he felt it. Dean remembered those nights where his skin wasn't big enough, where he could feel his bones stretching, worse pain than even the hardest of the John Winchester bootcamp. 

Sam crawled into Dean's bed, and Dean massaged skinny calves and skinny back and skinny arms, pushing his thumbs hard into the skin like he could help make it grow fast enough. Sam was growing up right in front of his eyes and under his hands and there wasn't a damn thing Dean could do to stop it. But he could rub the ache out of muscle and say quiet things in the dark, where those sort of things belonged. And if Sam asked, voice a whisper, his too fast growing arms wrapped around Dean's chest, Dean would kiss him over and over, learning the shape of his mouth and teaching him. Sam would kiss like him forever. Everyone else who had the privilege would be kissing Dean by proxy.

Take care of Sammy. 

But he couldn't. Dean had tried so hard. Dean would have slit his own throat if it would have taken away the surly, terrified, _angry_ look that took over Sam's face sometimes when he talked about Dad. He would have ripped off his arms and his legs and his very being to see that sweet smile that had been gone for too long, to see Sam really, truly happy again like they were in that forest, the lights turning them both blue and red and green in pulses. 

Take care of Sammy. 

It was all he had ever known. He'd wiped away tears more time than he could count, snot ruining the leather of his coat, and spent a few dozen nights in motel after motel clutching Sam tight into him. He had spent so many nights letting them take comfort in each other, tried his best to make sure Sam had every possible thing he could. 

He'd spent so many days in the Impala making silly faces and singing too loud to the music and trying to make math and science and English work in his brain. Sam was smarter than him, smarter than even Dad, and Dean couldn't keep up. He tried, read through Sam's school books and really, truly tried, but he hadn't seen the point of Hamlet when he'd been told to read it and couldn't muddle through it a second time well enough to understand Sam's essays. 

Take care of Sammy. Dean should have known. He should have known something was wrong. He knew Sam down into his very matter, all the way down to the parts that created him and made him real. Dean didn't know shit about shit, but he _knew_ Sam. Sam's life was his favorite book, the TV show he knew down to every line, the single thing that never changed. 

"Dean." 

The sound of his name woke him up, his hand already reaching for the knife under his pillow. But it was just Sam, looming dark in the doorway of Dean's room. Barely eighteen and he was already almost tall enough to hit the top of his head on it, taller than Dad and taller than Dean. Bigger than them. The clock radio said three am. 

"What?" Dean sat up, groaning away the sleep. He didn't flinch when Sam crawled in next to him, both of them squashed together in the too small space. 

"Can I-" Sam kissed him, as familiar as the taste of trucker food and the feel of overstarched sheets. Dean kissed back, running to keep up. He might have taught Sam everything he knew, but Sam had always been a fast learner, a scientist without proper tools. "Let me-"

"What, Sam?" Dean asked against Sam's wet, open mouth. He'd claw his own heart out for the boy in his arms, would tear his dirty, jagged nails into his own skin until he hit bone if Sam asked him to. 

"Dean, please." Sam led Dean's wrist to his stomach, pressed the palm flat against his smooth skin and held it there. 

"Sam-" Dean's fingers curled against the soft skin, his fingertips dragging over the muscles. Sam had muscles. Sam was almost a real, full grown _man_ and Dean could feel it under his own touch. Sammy was long gone and had been for years. Dean closed his eyes and thought of baby fat cheeks and a high voice and real, true wonder in the kaleidoscope of Sam's eyes. 

They needed another set of hands. They needed Sam's smarts. He'd proven himself over and over and over again with a laptop and a gun, but Dean couldn't let himself think of anything other than little Sammy struggling to load ammo into a magazine. Sam could strip a rifle within half a second of Dean. Sam could throw a man twice his size onto the floor and land a kill blow with his bare hands. 

Sam didn't need to be taken care of. Maybe Sam had never needed him at all. Maybe Sam was what Dad had been trying to turn Dean into for all these years. A perfect weapon, strong but smart. A finely honed blade instead of a blunt instrument. Dean shoved his face into the hollow of Sam's throat and breathed him in, sweat and salt and cheap gas station aftershave. Sam shaved now. Sam took a blade to the throat once a week to keep his horrific, scraggly beard at bay. 

"Just once," Sam said quietly. He pushed Dean's hand down again, held it against the hard bulge of his cock and pushed up into Dean's touch. "Please. Dean. Please."

Dean didn't breech the space between cotton and skin. It felt like too much. Too much for him, too much for Sam, too much for the sugar spun sweetness between them that stretched like taffy. But he touched Sam as best he could, stored away the changes in Sam's face as Dean worked him over, tried to catalogue the way Sam leaned into him so hard it was almost suffocating. 

Take care of Sammy. 

Dean woke up in a cold bed with an anchor in his stomach. Something was wrong. He could feel it in the rattle of his bones, so deep that there was no pushing it away. He got dressed in his armor of jeans and boots and three layers of shirts. The amulet around his neck felt heavy, a burden instead of a gift. He could feel the lightning in the air outside of the warmth of the blankets that still smelled like sex. 

He walked into the middle of breakfast, bacon burning on the stove and eggs turning to plaster on the counter. Sam had never quite gotten the timing right, but he was still the best cook of the three of them. Dad sat at the head of the dining room table, unshaven but with his shoulders held rigid. A thick stack of papers sat in front of him, barely peeled out of their manilla envelope skin. Sam, sleep soft and dressed in pajamas that Dean had long worn through, stood his ground, arms crossed over his chest and chin jutted out. 

"I'm going," Sam said. He didn't look at Dean at all. "You can't stop me. _I_ did this, Dad. _I_ got into _Stanford_." Sam's hands went brown-pink-white against the counter, his knuckles straining. He was strong. After last night, Dean couldn't deny that at all. He had felt it under his own hands. "You should be proud of me."

"Proud of you for running away?" Dad asked. He tucked the papers back into the envelope, hands shaking like they always did these days. Sam hadn't seen Dad miss shots. Dean had. Dad stared down at the return address, his jaw locked tight. "I raised a coward."

"Dad-"

"Say it to me," Sam said. He pushed himself off the counter and brought himself up to his full height. Dean had been as tall as Dad for over three years. Sam- Sam had passed both of them. When Dean saw photos or looked in the mirror, he seemed so _small_ next to Sam's messy, stretched bulk. "Look at me and tell me I'm a coward."

"Sam-" Dean's voice cracked. He could hear the break in the air, a wound that desperately needed attention, but Dad's eyes were on Sam and Sam's eyes were on Dad. Dean was just a ghost, pleading his case to deaf ears. "Sam, you can't-"

"What did you say to me?" Dad asked. He didn't move from his seat, but his shoulders pulled back and his eyes turned hard. Sam took the few meager steps across the kitchen floor and stood next to Dad, his chest heaving in deep, unsteady breaths. 

"Look at me, Dad," Sam pleaded. Dean had heard that voice a thousand times over, had bent to it half as many times, but Dad wouldn't. Dean thought of Sam shaking apart under his hands the night before and felt the betrayal so deep that it was a mortal wound. He would never be able to staunch this bleed. Sam grabbed the envelope with one big hand and clutched it to his chest, the kiddie blanket he had never had. "Tell me I'm a coward."

"If you walk out that door," Dad had said, and Dean knew then that he'd failed. Mom was dead and Dad only lived to kill and Sam was going to leave. He could feel it like a blister ready to burst. Dad looked up at Sam, eyes dead and voice flat. "Dont you come back."

" _Dad_ -" 

"I won't," Sam said, the slam of a coffin lid closing for the last time. He didn't touch Dean at all as he stormed back down the hall, didn't answer to his name as he shoved hand-me-down tshirts and jeans into his beaten Army Surplus duffle bag. 

He didn't say a word at all as he tore at the loose stitches of their family and ripped himself out, the door slamming behind him. The bacon kept burning, smoke filling the room. Dean stared after Sam's back, the shape of him getting smaller and smaller as he walked away. 

Take care of Sammy. 

Dean had one, single job and he had failed.


End file.
